Without support from the GOP holdouts, it is difficult to see how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., can whip 50 votes for the new health care bill before Sept. 30, the deadline to use the reconciliation process that requires a simple majority to push through the legislation.

In St. Louis, protests over the acquittal of a former police officer in the fatal shooting of a black motorist have degenerated into violent clashes with police. Problems between police and the black community exist well beyond St. Louis and nearby Ferguson. But this week’s clashes suggest that racial problems run deep here.

Deep-blue California boasts of how it’s resisting the Trump agenda, but the Democrats are divided between “protesters” and “pragmatists.” Some of the opposition is more rhetorical than substantive, and the most ambitious item on the anti-Trump agenda, a statewide single-payer health care plan, went down in flames.

Condemning the “depraved” North Korean regime, the president mocked Kim Jong Un, saying: “’Rocket Man’ is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime." Trump’s stark message came in a speech in which he also sharply criticized China, mildly rebuked Russia, condemned Venezuela’s government, and suggested he might scrap the Iran nuclear deal.

President Trump will use his maiden speech to the U.N. General Assembly to condemn Iran, call for global action on North Korea, and unapologetically defend his nationalistic “America First” stance before wary world leaders, administration officials said. Chinese President Xi Jinping is skipping the annual diplomatic crush in New York, but Trump will at least implicitly criticize Beijing in his Tuesday speech for not doing enough to tighten an economic vise on North Korea.

America’s Russia policy will be the main topic Tuesday at the hearing on Jon Huntsman’s nomination to be U.S. ambassador. Also on the agenda: the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which Huntsman backed but Trump and Putin opposed.

Two of President Trump’s lawyers were overheard by a New York Times reporter “loudly discussing” the Russia investigation at a Washington, D.C., steakhouse next to the newspaper’s D.C. bureau. The conversation led to a front-page story about tension within Trump’s legal team.

The president fired off a barrage of tweets and retweets on Sunday, including a crudely edited video of him hitting a golf ball into Hillary Clinton's back and a message mocking North Korea leader Kim Jong Un as "Rocket Man."